Dream Team V Camp Opens, October 2

Nigeria’s national U-23 men football team will open camp in Abuja on October 2 ahead of its campaign in the final round of London 2012 Olympic Games qualifiers.

The team’s Media Officer, Mr Arafat Aliu, told newsmen in Abuja that this was part of the team’s recently-approved programme.

“This is part of the team’s new schedule which was approved last week  in Abuja by the Technical Committee of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA),” he said.

The team known as “Dream Team V” has qualified for the eight-nation final round of African qualifiers for the Olympic Games.

The championship scheduled for Egypt from November 26 to December 10 has hosts Egypt, Algeria, Cote D’Ivoire, Gabon, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa as participants.

Aliu disclosed that team’s head coach Austin Eguavoen would then use the next FIFA international match days of October 7 to October 11 to visit some of his players in Europe.

“The first phase of camping will as expected be for the home-based players, while the technical crew and the NFA will then deliberate on those to be invited from abroad to join the team,” he said.

The team’s spokesman said the second and final phase of the camping would hold from November 7 to November 20.

“This will be in either Turkey or Portugal and it is from there the team will depart for Cairo on November 22,” he said.